This time, the cause of the long day was being triple-booked. First, Ariel invited several of her students to her place for photos and hot pot, and invited me too. The main reason for me going was a girl called Lily, who I'd met once before when Ariel brought her to work - she was interested in seeing what teaching children was like. She's a lovely person, very beautiful, and seems to be interested in me.
I didn't have much of a chance to talk with Lily, but I did have a great time with Ariel, Lily, and Lily's friends. We managed to get the hot pot going despite not having any water, by going downstairs and washing the vegetables in the building management office - which did have water. Afterwards, we went to a nearby park to take photos with each other, and we had a lot of fun with that. All the other girls didn't have very good English, so even when I was talking to someone else it was usually through Lily, since her English is pretty good for a university student, and much better than any of her friends.
That was what I did in the morning and afternoon. At this point it started to rain, we all parted ways, and Ariel and I went to Kiko's new apartment for a housewarming party. All the teachers at school were invited, but neither of the other foreign teachers turned up - I don't know why Ivy wasn't there, but she must have had an excuse, since no-one was asking where she was. Alex, on the other hand, just wasn't there, despite saying he would be. However, it was a great party - Kiko and her husband cooked a whole lot of food for all of us, and it was really good. I even tried chicken feet for the first time! They're not as bad as they look, but they still creep me out. Also, her new place is really nice - but the price you pay for a nice place (other than large amounts of money, of course) is being a long way out of town. It took us an hour to get back by bus, and apparently it takes Kiko two hours when she goes to work in the morning during peak traffic.
After that, Ariel and I left to go meet Yoyo, and we went to KTV for Yoyo's going away party. Yoyo leaves for another town this Sunday, so we had a small goodbye party - just the three of us. Although karaoke in a more familiar setting does exist over here - normally in outside drinking places, rather than bars - KTV is very popular, and is very different despite using the same basic notion of singing along (badly) to songs you know. First, the KTV place we went to was huge, and was very well presented. It looked more like an upper-class hotel than a karaoke establishment - polished stone floors, high ceilings, the staff all dressed in suits. Second, you don't sing in front of a bunch of drunken people doing the same thing as you in a place like this - you get a room to yourself, just you and your friends. Personally, I think that's cheating a little - it's not the same unless you demonstrate how badly you can sing in front of a room full of strangers. Third, although you can get drinks, they're not the primary focus here (since you don't need to be quite so drunk to sing in front of your friends as you do to sing in front of strangers), and instead they have a small buffet service out in the hall.
We booked from 11pm to 6am, but we were all so tired we started falling asleep at 3am; so we left and went our separate ways back home instead of staying. It was fun while it lasted, though, and they had a healthy selection of English songs so I could play along, too.
Okay, enough of that. Time for photos!
All the photos are with Ariel and her students. I forgot to take photos at Kiko's place, and the photos from KTV are dark and not very good. The first few of these are group photos, and have almost everyone who was there in them, except for whoever was behind the camera.
This one does have everyone, though, because we got a random bystander to take the photo.
These ones aren't group photos.
Neither is this one.
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